THE wife of the 41st US president and 'mom' of the 43rd, who has died aged 92, launched a mould-breaking campaign to help people from disadvantaged communities to read and write

Barbara Bush lived to the grand old age of 92 and for 12 of those years either her husband George Herbert Walker Bush, or her son George W, were in the White House.

She was the second woman in American history to have filled such a role - Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams (1735-1826) was the first. But while Adams was dead by the time her son John Quincy Adams took the presidency, Barbara saw both of them sworn in.

In the words of the poet Milton, "They also serve who only stand and wait", but Barbara was not content with such a passive role.

It is fitting that in lieu of flowers the former First Lady - known to generations as "America's grandmother" despite a famously acerbic tongue - requested that those wishing to honour her memory should do so through donations to her literacy foundation.

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"I realised everything I worried about would be better if more people could read, write and comprehend," she said. "Our success as a society depends not on what happens in the White House but on what happens inside your house."

For nearly 30 years the nonprofit Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy has provided educational opportunities for millions of Americans of all ages giving them "a better life through literacy". It is a formidable legacy and its work is ongoing.

"Believe in something larger than yourself get involved in the big ideas of your time," said the woman after whom six American schools are named. She even ghost-wrote the memoirs of her springer spaniel Millie to raise funds for the literacy project she established in 1989 when her husband became vicepresident.

It sold 400,000 copies and raised more than £700,000 for the foundation, which had been inspired in part by the discovery that her own children had dyslexic tendencies.

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Former U.S. President, George H. W. Bush in pictures.

Former US President George H. W. Bush and former First Lady Barbara Bush head to mid-field for the coin toss of Super Bowl LI at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, USA

It wasn't Barbara's first charity endeavour. In 1953 the couple's second child Pauline died of leukaemia two months before her fourth birthday. The tragedy turned Barbara's dark brown hair white at the age of just 28 but she was determined to work energetically for an organisation established in the little girl's name to fund research.

The Bushes, who had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in US history, went on to raise more than $1billion (£700m) for literacy and cancer charities.

Barbara Pierce, the daughter of a women's magazine publisher, met 18-year-old George at a dance when she was 16. "I married the first man I kissed," she once said. "When I tell this to my children they just about throw up." The ceremony took place in January 1945 while the navy's youngest torpedo bomber pilot was home on leave. He named three of his planes after her: Barbara I, Barbara II and Barbara III. After the war he made his fortune in oil before entering politics.

In her 1994 memoir, Barbara described her time in the White House as First Lady. "I had the best job in America. Every single day was interesting, rewarding and fun."

Barbara's ability to contend with the combative atmosphere in Washington was fashioned by her intelligence coupled with her determination: she had already engineered no less than 29 house moves for her family of five surviving children.

She insisted that she did not try to influence her husband's politics but they did disagree on two issues. She supported legal abortion and opposed the sale of assault weapons. "I don't fool around with his office and he doesn't fool around in my household," she once explained, but behind the scenes she worked assiduously to promote the ambitions of her menfolk, including second son Jeb, former governor of Florida.

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US President George W. Bush and mother Barbara Bush

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Barbara Bush and her husband President George Bush visiting troops in Saudi Arabia, 1990

She suffered a bout of clinical depression during the 1970s as she questioned her own role in life.

"Night after night George held me weeping in his arms while I tried to explain my feelings," she wrote of her husband's unstinting care. "I almost wonder why he didn't leave me." After leaving office George wrote to his loyal wife emphasising his devotion to her: "You have given me joy that few men know. You have made our boys into men by bawling them out and then, right away, by loving them.

"I have climbed perhaps the highest mountain but even that cannot hold a candle to being Barbara's husband."

In 1990 Barbara gave the commencement address at influential all-women Wellesley College. Some detractors claimed she was prominent only through the achievements of her husband but a decade later her speech was rated 45th in an academic survey of the 100 most influential speeches of the 20th century.

In it she spoke of the importance of nurturing those we love. "Cherish your human connections," she said. "You will never regret not closing one more deal, you will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent." Barbara Bush lived as she spoke.